In Today's
India,
Status
Comes With
Four
Wheels

VISHAKHAPATNAM,
India
- On the
dark
highway,
the car
showroom
glowed in
the night
like an
American
drive-in.
Inside, it
looked
more like
a
game-show
set:
bright
lights,
white
floors,
huge
windows,
high
ceilings
and ad
posters of
beaming
consumers
far paler
than most
Indians.
For
36-year-old
Ram Reddy,
the price
was right
enough to
make a
down
payment on
his fifth
family
car.

He and
his
brother
already
had one
car "for
the
children,"
two "for
the
ladies,"
and so on.
Now they
were
buying the
Toyota
Innova, a
big-as-a-boat
luxury van
that
retails
for a
minimum of
$23,000,
46 times
India's
per capita
income of
about
$500.

The
Innova is
a new
plaything
of the
moneyed
here, one
being
peddled,
like so
many
products
in India
today, by
a
Bollywood
star. It
is yet
another
symbol of
the
kid-in-a-candy-store
psyche
that has
seized
India's
growing
consuming
class,
once
denied
capitalism's
choices
and now
flooded
with them.

Fifteen
years
after
India
began its
transition
from a
state-run
to a
free-market
economy, a
new
culture of
money -
making it,
and even
more,
spending
it - is
afoot.

This
domestic
hunger for
goods has
become an
important
engine for
an economy
that still
lags in
exports.
So intense
is the
advertising
onslaught,
so giddy
the media
coverage
of the new
affluence,
that it is
almost
easy to
forget
that India
remains
home to
the
world's
largest
number of
poor
people,
according
to the
World
Bank.

Still,
India's
middle
class has
grown to
an
estimated
250
million in
the past
decade,
and the
number of
super-rich
has grown
sharply as
well.

And,
after more
decades of
socialist
deprivation,
when
consumer
goods were
so limited
that
refrigerators
were given
pride of
place in
living
rooms,
they have
ever more
wares to
spend it
on:
cellphones,
air-conditioners
and
washing
machines;
Botox,
sushi and
Louis
Vuitton
bags; and,
perhaps
the
biggest
status
symbol of
all, cars.

India
has become
one of the
world's
fastest-growing
car
markets,
with about
a million
being sold
each year.
It once
had only
two kinds,
Fiats and
Ambassadors.
Now dozens
of models
ride the
roads,
from the
humble,
Indian-made
Maruti to
the
Rolls-Royce,
which has
re-entered
India's
market
some 50
years
after
leaving in
the
British
wake.

Indians
are
discovering
in cars
everything
Americans
did:
control
and
freedom,
privacy
and
privilege,
speed and
status.
Car
showrooms,
the bigger
the
better,
are the
new
temples
here, and
cars the
icons of a
new
individualism
taking
root.
Foreign
car
companies,
meanwhile,
have
discovered
the Indian
consumer -
not to
mention
the
country's
engineering
brain
power -
and are
setting up
plants
across
India.

The
growing
lust for
cars also
reflects
India
finally
having
roads
decent
enough to
drive them
on. It is
making a
historic
effort to
upgrade
its
dismal,
mostly
two-lane
national
highway
system
into four-
or
six-lane
interstates,
its
largest
infrastructure
project
since
independence
in 1947.

A New
York Times
reporter
and a
photographer
drove one
portion of
the
project,
the
so-called
Golden
Quadrilateral,
which
passes
through
New Delhi,
Calcutta,
Madras,
officially
known as
Chennai,
and
Mumbai,
formerly
Bombay,
earlier
this year.

The
revamped
highways
mean that,
for the
first time
in India,
cars can
go fast;
thus the
new
appetite
for fast
cars. The
middle and
upper
classes,
already
being
lured by
one of the
world's
fastest-growing
domestic
airline
industries,
are
discovering
driving
for
pleasure
as much as
need.

"This
is the
American
1950's
happening
in India
now," said
Padma
Chandrasekaran,
a Madras
resident
marveling
at the new
ease of
driving
the 205
miles to
Bangalore.

The new
highways
have
seduced
well-off
consumers
like Mr.
Reddy, who
plans to
use the
Innova for
family
road trips
to places
like the
temple at
Tirupati,
about 400
miles
south of
here, a
trip he
would
previously
have made
by train.
The
highway's
smoother
surfaces
and
additional
lanes have
also
enriched
him, by
reducing
fuel and
maintenance
costs for
his
trucking
company.

"If the
roads were
not good,
we would
not have
this many
cars,"
said the
bearded
Mr. Reddy,
whose
9-year-old
son
already
knows how
to steer
an
automobile.

Consumers'
Appetites
Grow

The
8,300-square-foot
Toyota
showroom
had been
open only
a few
months,
and its
location
just
outside
town on
the silky
new
highway
had
already
turned out
to be a
prime
sales aid.
The
general
manager
chuckled,
saying
that if he
gave a
test drive
on the
road, it
would be
"a happy
ride."

That
many of
the city's
one
million
residents
are what
Sastry V.
Prakky,
the
dealership's
senior
sales and
marketing
manager,
calls
"filthy
rich" also
does not
hurt.

Named
for
Visakha,
the god of
valor,
Vishakhapatnam
faces the
Bay of
Bengal, in
the state
of Andhra
Pradesh.
The city
is home to
one of
India's
largest
ports and
the
country's
oldest
shipyard.
It is also
squarely
in India's
booming
south.

Some
residents
have
prospered
by going
to work in
the United
States in
information
technology,
others by
opening
"business
process
outsourcing"
centers.
Many work
in
pharmaceutical
production,
or export
carpets or
shellfish.

Pricy
hotels
line the
beachfront,
and
driving
schools
the side
streets,
although
Indian
driving
habits
raise
questions
about the
quality of
their
instruction.
Almost
every
beauty
salon also
has a
"body
weight
reduction"
center,
reflecting
the
upper-middle-class's
new
obsession,
and
plumpness:
people are
still
starving
in India,
but people
are
overeating,
too.

In a
historical
blink,
capitalism,
which
postcolonial
analysis
once
labeled
poverty's
cause, is
now seen
as its
solution.
Debt, once
anathema
for the
middle
class, is
now an
acceptable
means to
an end.

For a
sliver of
Indians,
the go-go
years are
here. The
same
sentiment
has
permeated
the
countryside,
where
young men
drive
bright
yellow
motorbikes
with names
like
Ambition
and dream
of
becoming
crorepatis,
or
multimillionaires.

America,
of course,
went
through a
similar
evolution:
the making
of a
postwar
consumerist
economy;
the
introduction
of credit
cards and
growing
comfort
with, and
dependence
on, debt;
the rise
of an
advertising
culture.
India
today
offers the
chance to
watch it
in real
time, at a
hyper,
almost-out-of-control,
pace.

"Now
the people
want to
spend and
enjoy,"
Mr. Prakky
said.
"Everyone
wants
upgradation":
the
scooter
owner
wants a
motorbike,
the
motorbike
owner a
car, the
car owner
a more
expensive
one.

He was
checking
the
paperwork
on another
new
purchase,
including
a deposit
of 180,000
rupees, or
about
$4,000. He
took it
upstairs
to the
general
manager,
C.
Sudhaker,
whose
glass-walled
office
overlooked
the
showroom
floor. In
modern
times, as
Mr.
Sudhaker
put it, a
good car
was a
business
necessity,
not just
about
showing
off,
although
he
conceded
an
appetite
for
"recognition
in
society."

That
appetite
was on
display in
other
showrooms
along the
highway.

"Life
is short,
madam,"
said
Sanganagouda
Patil, a
politician
and
landowner,
explaining
why he had
to buy a
new car
model
every two
years. He
was at
another
Toyota
showroom,
about 600
miles away
in the
state of
Karnataka,
inspecting
the Innova
even
though he
already
owned four
cars.
Proper
vehicles
were
expected
of
V.I.P.'s,
he said,
even if
the roads
near his
home
district
were not
yet good
enough to
drive
them.

He wore
gold
jewelry,
Ray-Ban
sunglasses
and an
expensive-looking
white
kurta of
the
hand-woven
fabric
that
Mohandas
K. Gandhi
popularized
as a
symbol of
swadeshi,
or
homegrown,
in an era
when all
things
foreign
were
mistrusted.

Many
Indian
politicians
today see
the state
merely as
an object
of
plunder,
and they
are not
shy about
displaying
their
spoils.
Car
salesmen
say that
when a new
model
comes in,
politicians
call and
demand to
have the
first
vehicle
delivered
to them,
with a
discount.

A
Shifting
Value
System

India's
state-run
rail
network
may have
been built
by the
British,
but it
came to
represent
a certain
egalitarianism.
Powerful
and
voiceless,
rich and
poor - all
navigated
the same
chaotic,
crowded
stations
and rode
the same
jam-packed
trains, if
not in the
same
class.

Cars,
in
contrast,
reflect
the
atomization
prosperity
brings.

This is
a far
bigger
change for
Indian
society
than it
was for
America,
which in
many ways
was
founded
around the
notion of
the
individual.
Indian
society
has always
been more
about
duty, or
dharma,
than
drive,
more about
responsibility
to others
than the
realization
of
individual
desire.

That
ethos is
changing.
"Twenty
years back
one car
was an
achievement,"
said Maj.
Gen. B. C.
Khanduri,
who as
minister
of roads
from 2000
to 2004
helped
shepherd
the new
highway
into
being.
"Now every
child
needs
their own
car."

To him
and others
who grew
up in a
different
society,
that
change
bespeaks a
larger,
and
troubling,
shift.
"The value
system is
finishing
now," he
said. "We
are
gradually
increasing
everyone
for
himself."

Luxuries
are now
necessities,
he said,
and
children
are
focused
more on
earning
for
themselves
than on
caring for
their
parents.
Indians
have
always
been
critical
of what
they see
as
American
selfishness,
the way
children
relegate
parents to
retirement
homes so
they can
pursue
their own
lives.
Now,
suddenly,
they are
hearing
such
stories
among
themselves.

Spreading
affluence
also has
brought
new
competitive
anxiety.
Where once
everyone
in a
neighborhood
had an
Ambassador
or a Fiat,
the
hierarchy
of
livelihoods,
of
success,
now can be
parsed
easily
through
cars.

P. V.
J.
Mohanrao,
48, an
assistant
college
professor,
who came
to the
Toyota
showroom
to look at
the Innova,
could
afford
only
cheaper
cars: the
Indian-made
Maruti and
Tata Sumo.

A
neighbor
who was
with him,
P.
Srinivas,
41, a
businessman
dealing in
glass,
could
afford
larger
monthly
installments,
and thus
the more
luxurious
Chevrolet
Tavera.

Another
neighbor,
a software
entrepreneur
who, Mr.
Mohanrao
pointed
out, had
"spent
time in
the United
States,"
outclassed
them both:
at any
given
time, he
had three
or four
cars, none
of them
cheap.

"He has
booked
this car,
I heard,"
Mr.
Mohanrao
said of
his
neighbor
and the
Innova.

The car
fever here
is in part
a triumph
of
marketing
to people
who did
not grow
up being
marketed
to.
Advertising
in India
has
succeeded
in making,
as Mr.
Khanduri
said,
luxuries
into
necessities,
in
portraying
persuasion
as
knowledge.

The
Toyota
salesmen
here
market
aggressively,
singling
out beach
walkers
and mall
shoppers.
They aim
at people
who bought
cars in
2002 and
convince
them they
already
need an
upgrade.
Helped by
record-low
car-loan
rates,
they have
learned to
manufacture
desire.
"If that
fellow has
a burning
zeal we
will add
to the
fire, we
will tempt
him," said
Mr. Prakky,
the sales
manager.

The
Dangers of
the Boom

"Please
do not
drive in
the wrong
direction,"
a flashing
sign
implores
over the
redone
highway.

The
feeble
exhortation
underscores
one of the
many
downsides
of India's
auto boom.
The
country
already
has one of
the
world's
highest
accident
rates,
with more
than
80,000
traffic-related
deaths a
year. Few
police
officers
patrol its
roads,
which
ensures
that
pretty
much
anything
goes, even
at times
on the
fancy new
highway.

With
India
reveling
in its
rising
global
profile,
there has
been
little
planning
for the
traffic,
environmental
or
economic
consequences
of
millions
more
Indians
acquiring
new cars.
India's
economic
boom has
outpaced
any
planning
for the
resources,
like oil
for auto
fuel, it
will
demand.
Urban
planning
is so poor
that in
Bangalore
and other
cities
traffic
congestion
is
threatening
investment
and
business
expansion.

At the
same time,
the focus
on cars
threatens
to obscure
the needs
of the
many more
without
them.
There are
still only
about
eight
million
passenger
vehicles
on Indian
roads, in
a country
of more
than one
billion
people. By
the late
1920's, in
comparison,
the United
States had
23 million
registered
car
owners.

Poor
Indians
rely, in
addition
to their
feet, on
an
extraordinary
array of
contraptions
for
transport.
They pile
on top of
buses in
the Indian
version of
the
double-decker.
They ride
tractors
and
bullock
carts and
pack 13
strong
into Tempo
taxis made
for 6.

What
they
cannot
regularly
rely on is
public
transport.
While New
Delhi and
Calcutta
have built
subways,
most
cities
have not,
and they
face
severe bus
shortages
as well.
Cars speed
by waiting
bus
riders,
who stand
like
spectators.

The
rise of
the auto,
and the
investment
in
highways,
dovetails
with a
larger
trend of
privatization
in Indian
life, in
which the
"haves"
are those
who can
afford to
pay for
services
the
government
does not
provide:
efficient
transport,
clean
water,
good
schools,
decent
health
care.

Most
Indians
cannot
afford the
tolls
along the
Golden
Quadrilateral,
let alone
the cars
to drive
on it.
Gandhi,
whose foot
marches
for social
justice
defined an
era of
Indian
history,
now has an
expressway
named for
him. Its
toll of
$1.33 is
more than
about 300
million
Indians
earn in a
day.

India's
growing
material
hunger has
another
downside:
it is
largely
being
sated by
credit and
debt.

With
borrowing
comes the
danger of
overstretching,
and pricy
cars
purchased
in
Vishakhapatnam's
Toyota
showroom
can always
be taken
back.

That is
where the
repo man
comes in.
He waits
at a
tollbooth
in
Rajasthan,
cater-corner
from
Vishakhapatnam
on the
Quadrilateral,
armed with
a long
list of
deadbeats'
license
plate
numbers.

In a
beat-up
Maruti
van, with
a stick
inside,
Anil Kumar
Vyas, 34,
was
chasing
down
Toyota
owners
behind in
their
payments.
Befitting
his
upper-caste
Brahmin
status, he
was also a
local
village
head, but
that
brought
more
prestige
than
profit.

His may
be one of
the few
lines of
work that
has
benefited
from
traffic
jams and
potholes.
Bad roads
made for
easy
captures,
since no
one could
drive over
22 miles
an hour.
On the
new,
smooth
four-lane
highway,
he has
already
given
chase at
more than
60 miles
an hour.

"It is
harder for
us to
catch
them," he
said.
"We're
still
working it
out."